Historical recruiting perspective on Clemson's accomplishment tonight

[HSVDawg]

Been saving this post in case they actually pulled it out, and they did.

Over the last 5 years (players comprising Clemson's current NC team), Clemson has an average recruiting rank of 13.4 in the 247 composite. That includes the 2015 and 2016 classes in which they finished 11th and 9th. When you look at just the 3 previous classes that comprise the upper classes (3rd, 4th, and 5th year guys in the program who comprised probably 80% of the 2-deep), they were barely top 15. Those are both probably the lowest composite recruiting averages for any national championship team since such rankings have been established, and by a significant margin. And it throws a little bit of cold water on the theory that you have to be a Top 5 or Top 10 recruiting program over multiple years to compete for a NC.

The big question, as it relates to MSU, is can we ever be a consistent top 15 recruiting program? If so, can we do it under the current staff / head coach? Because it appears that is the new Mendoza line, if you will, for having a shot to win the big one.

[ShotgunDawg]

Been saving this post in case they actually pulled it out, and they did.

Over the last 5 years (players comprising Clemson's current NC team), Clemson has an average recruiting rank of 13.4 in the 247 composite. That includes the 2015 and 2016 classes in which they finished 11th and 9th. When you look at just the 3 previous classes that comprise the upper classes (3rd, 4th, and 5th year guys in the program who comprised probably 80% of the 2-deep), they were barely top 15. Those are both probably the lowest composite recruiting averages for any national championship team since such rankings have been established, and by a significant margin. And it throws a little bit of cold water on the theory that you have to be a Top 5 or Top 10 recruiting program over multiple years to compete for a NC.

The big question, as it relates to MSU, is can we ever be a consistent top 15 recruiting program? If so, can we do it under the current staff / head coach? Because it appears that is the new Mendoza line, if you will, for having a shot to win the big one.

Clemson is basically Auburn with better coaching and typically an easier schedule.

Clemson is close to Atlanta, Charlotte, and an easier draw from Florida.

If we are going to become Clemson, it's going to take about 17 years total of sustained winning that spans multiple coaching staffs. Jake Wimberly had a great presentation of this Double Coverage today.

Remember when we beat Clemson in the Peach Bowl under Sherrill?

That was close to their beginning and they've been building ever since. Tommy Bowden to Dabo. We went backwards and they incrementally built.

In our build, we are currently going into year 9 with about 6 more years of sustained winning to get there.

We are on the right path building a program the right way takes time. We've got to keep building and taking steps forward.

Wimberly said Mullen is our Tommy Bowden and we'll have to make an unreal hire, like Clemson did, when Mullen leaves to take the next step.

There aren't any shortcuts like OM and Freezus took. That gets you ahead quickly but isn't sustainable. To do what Clemson did, you have to build and develop a culture of pride for years.

[Homedawg]

Been saving this post in case they actually pulled it out, and they did.

Over the last 5 years (players comprising Clemson's current NC team), Clemson has an average recruiting rank of 13.4 in the 247 composite. That includes the 2015 and 2016 classes in which they finished 11th and 9th. When you look at just the 3 previous classes that comprise the upper classes (3rd, 4th, and 5th year guys in the program who comprised probably 80% of the 2-deep), they were barely top 15. Those are both probably the lowest composite recruiting averages for any national championship team since such rankings have been established, and by a significant margin. And it throws a little bit of cold water on the theory that you have to be a Top 5 or Top 10 recruiting program over multiple years to compete for a NC.

The big question, as it relates to MSU, is can we ever be a consistent top 15 recruiting program? If so, can we do it under the current staff / head coach? Because it appears that is the new Mendoza line, if you will, for having a shot to win the big one.

Still a top 15 recruiting team and to add for you finish 15th in the country that means 7-8 in the sec. That who we play to get to the final 4. That's problematic. Finish top 15 in acc and that puts you behind fsu in acc. Had we been able to get out of the league two years ago, we might have won it. Winning the league is first step, and to do that you have to be a top 10 recruiting team. At least for the last 10 years it's been that way.

[ScottH]

So stated another way it's harder to win the SEC than win a Natty if you are not in the SEC?

[Todd4State]

The elephant in the room about recruiting rankings is they know who the best teams "likely" will be year in and year out. Therefore Alabama, LSU, Southern Cal, Florida State, Texas, Oklahoma, etc. typically have higher rated recruiting classes every year. And then when those teams win the NC they then can sell "Hey, look! We're good at evaluating!" 4-5 years ago Clemson was probably a top 25 team and I think their recruiting rankings simply reflected where they were guessed to be at that time. It doesn't really matter if a Mississippi State outperforms their rankings because they're still going to guess the majority correctly and that's all it really takes in the eyes of their customers.

The best way to follow recruiting is to watch the videos and go watch the players play in person and then make your own evaluation based off of what you see. I think it's more enjoyable that way too.

To answer your question- to me it's hard to really know what our ceiling is in recruiting because I don't know that in my years as a fan that we've ever really had a coach that maximizes our potential. My guess is that we should be a top 15-20 team in recruiting every year. It's going to be a lot harder for us to beat the perception monkey unless we start winning 8 every year- which is possible for us and I think we're pretty close to that on average with Dan. Right now the biggest thing I think we need to do is take down Alabama while having a 10 win season. That's probably our next "step" as a program. Going to bowls every year helps as well- we have a longer streak than Ole Miss, Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Mizzou in the SEC and as you see that's better than some pretty big names. We also are about to completely dominate the state of Mississippi for potentially a sustained period of time. That will do wonders for our program as well. I still think that one of the biggest things our program needs is pride and higher expectations and dominating Mississippi will help with that.

The next two years are big for our program IMO. It would be really nice to have an 8 win season next year and then follow it up with a 10 win season. Doing that would show that our program wasn't just Dak carrying us for a short period of time. I believe our team in 2017 and 2018 has that kind of potential, but we'll see how it shakes out.

I think that leads to your next question about Dan- I think he absolutely has the potential to do it from an X and O's standpoint. I actually think he's a very good play caller and there is no question he can develop QB's well. For him to go to the next level he has to get better at late game management, he has to get better at personnel management, and he has to place more of an emphasis on recruiting- and yes, I do mean in a legal way which include making difficult decisions about some of his friends on the staff. Will he do it? I think he has certainly tried to take some steps especially with recruiting. Hopefully he will be completely invested in us for at least the next two years and Sexton and Cohen will hopefully be good influences on him to making those better choices and decisions. I do think Ole Miss getting hammered will help because let's be honest- it has to be discouraging to try to recruit against an uneven playing field. There have been rumors that was a big reason why Dan was discouraged about MSU and was looking around after 2015. I'm hopeful that it all works out for us.

[parabrave]

Clemson also gets the cream of players from NY/NJ, I used to call Clemson/Anderson Naples north, and Pennsylvania. Probably over 25 percent of their Student Body is from the north attending their Eng school. Yes the gamecock fans are probably more pissed than the Bama people.

[dawgs]

The better your QB, the worse (relatively speaking) your overall recruiting can be. Bama, maybe Ohio st and f$u, are the only programs recruiting on a level that mediocre QB doesn't immediately disqualify them from playoff discussion. Everyone else needs an elite QB to take them from the 8-10 W level to contender level. I think people have run the numbers before on worst recruiting classes to play for a natty, and seems like Oregon and auburn were both about where clemson's rankings are.

[HSVDawg]

Still a top 15 recruiting team and to add for you finish 15th in the country that means 7-8 in the sec. That who we play to get to the final 4. That's problematic. Finish top 15 in acc and that puts you behind fsu in acc. Had we been able to get out of the league two years ago, we might have won it. Winning the league is first step, and to do that you have to be a top 10 recruiting team. At least for the last 10 years it's been that way.

Good post and probably true most years, but the SEC hasn't been as good as the ACC the last two years. The team Clemson has built would be able to run the table in the SEC West, and they proved it. Two best teams in the SEC according to the final CFP rankings were Alabama and Auburn, and Clemson beat both of them at road / neutral locations.

[dawgday166]

Could our coaching staff coach us to that level if we had 5 straight top 15 classes. I'm kinda skeptical on that one. Plus, Clemson's D coordinator has been there a while and is a good one. My impression is Dabo would be a good guy to work for.

[msstate7]

Could our coaching staff coach us to that level if we had 5 straight top 15 classes. I'm kinda skeptical on that one. Plus, Clemson's D coordinator has been there a while and is a good one. My impression is Dabo would be a good guy to work for.

How venables isn't a HC is mind boggling.

[BrunswickDawg]

I have to disagree about this having been some sort of "build to a title" situation with Clemson. They have 18 Conference Titles under their belt. They have a previous NC in 1981. They had a few down years, but it is tough to call a team with 12 10-win and 8 9-win seasons over the past 40 years as some sort of new power. You are talking about a program that was started by John Heisman. Seriously. John Heisman. Danny Ford was just announced as a Hall of Fame Coach yesterday

If anything, Clemson is finally living up to the hype and expectations. They have been a pre-season Top 25 team 23 of the past 40 years. They have been ranked in the Top 25 at some point in the season 34 of the past 40 years.

Now, with that being said, what they have built is the ability to move from "almost" a contender to an "actual" contender. If anything, I think Clemson shows how hard it is to get from that "almost" level to the contender level. It shows how far we still have to go to build to the "almost" contender.

[Lance Harbor]

Clemson also gets the cream of players from NY/NJ, I used to call Clemson/Anderson Naples north, and Pennsylvania. Probably over 25 percent of their Student Body is from the north attending their Eng school. Yes the gamecock fans are probably more pissed than the Bama people.


Largest out of state population at Clemson is......NEW JERSEY! (insert pic of Fred Armisen here)

[Lance Harbor]

How venables isn't a HC is mind boggling.

Agreed.

[Leeshouldveflanked]

Dan Mullen = Tommy Bowden.... We are a "good" developmental program, we have facilities, etc... but we haven't taken it to the next level on the assistant coaches....we have been mediocre to bad in several key assistant positions....

[BrunswickDawg]

Largest out of state population at Clemson is......NEW JERSEY! (insert pic of Fred Armisen here)http://i.giphy.com/12OMobzGSSwQLK.gif

[HSVDawg]

Clemson is basically Auburn with better coaching and typically an easier schedule.

Except they don't recruit as well as Auburn, who is usually a Top 10 recruiter. Hence the post.

Clemson is close to Atlanta, Charlotte, and an easier draw from Florida.

My post wasn't about advantages / disadvantages of Clemson's recruiting. Just outputs and results. They are the first team of the modern era (BCS + CFP) to win a title without stringing together several top 10 classes. That is significant. A lot still had to go right for them. Namely, they had to have one of the top two QB's in college football.

If we are going to become Clemson, it's going to take about 17 years total of sustained winning that spans multiple coaching staffs. Jake Wimberly had a great presentation of this Double Coverage today.

Remember when we beat Clemson in the Peach Bowl under Sherrill?

That was close to their beginning and they've been building ever since. Tommy Bowden to Dabo. We went backwards and they incrementally built.

In our build, we are currently going into year 9 with about 6 more years of sustained winning to get there.

We are on the right path building a program the right way takes time. We've got to keep building and taking steps forward.

Wimberly said Mullen is our Tommy Bowden and we'll have to make an unreal hire, like Clemson did, when Mullen leaves to take the next step.

There aren't any shortcuts like OM and Freezus took. That gets you ahead quickly but isn't sustainable. To do what Clemson did, you have to build and develop a culture of pride for years.

Agree with most all of this. And the comparison of Dan to Tommy Bowden by another poster was dead on as well



*

[HSVDawg]

The better your QB, the worse (relatively speaking) your overall recruiting can be. Bama, maybe Ohio st and f$u, are the only programs recruiting on a level that mediocre QB doesn't immediately disqualify them from playoff discussion. Everyone else needs an elite QB to take them from the 8-10 W level to contender level. I think people have run the numbers before on worst recruiting classes to play for a natty, and seems like Oregon and auburn were both about where clemson's rankings are.

Auburn had 3 top 10 classes and two outside the top 20 (during the Tubby to Chizik transition years) over the same period as mentioned above for Clemson before their title. They also had probably the most physically gifted QB of all time, so a little bit of an anomoly there. Oregon hasn't been able to win a title, so their rankings are somewhat irrelevant as it relates to what it takes to hoist the trophy.

[BB30]

Could our coaching staff coach us to that level if we had 5 straight top 15 classes. I'm kinda skeptical on that one. Plus, Clemson's D coordinator has been there a while and is a good one. My impression is Dabo would be a good guy to work for.

Why skeptical? We were one win away in 14 with classes outside of one that didn't sniff the top 15. We have literally been 1 or two o lineman away from being very very competitive two years in a row. I think had we had top 10-15 recruiting classes the last five years we very well could have won the west in 14 and possibly 15. That is assuming we hand 1 or 2 more playmakers and 1 or 2 legit OL prospects to bump us into the top 15.

[Lumpy Chucklelips]

The problem that we will always face is that when we finish 15th in recruiting, we will still be ranked 6th or 7th in the SEC.

South Carolina is currently 15th on 247, 7th in the SEC. We are 20th = 9th.

If we were in the ACC, we'd be 5th.
If we were in the Big1G, we'd be 4th.
If we were in the Pac12, we'd be 3rd.
If we were in the Big12, we'd be 2nd.

For comparative purposes Louisville would currently be ranked 12th in the SEC.

[HSVDawg]

Why skeptical? We were one win away in 14 with classes outside of one that didn't sniff the top 15. We have literally been 1 or two o lineman away from being very very competitive two years in a row. I think had we had top 10-15 recruiting classes the last five years we very well could have won the west in 14 and possibly 15. That is assuming we hand 1 or 2 more playmakers and 1 or 2 legit OL prospects to bump us into the top 15.

We weren't one win away from winning the title. We were (maybe) one win away from making the playoff. We likely would have lost the first game if we even got in. That team, as good as it was, didn't really have many impressive wins at the end of the year. None of those "three straight Top 10 win" teams even finished ranked, except for maybe Auburn who might have been 25th or something.

I do agree that with 2 to 3 more impact players in a couple of classes we could have climbed into the Top 15 classes and made a bigger run in 2014. We were a little further away in 2015 though. Too many holes, especially on the OL.

[dawgs]

Auburn had 3 top 10 classes and two outside the top 20 (during the Tubby to Chizik transition years) over the same period as mentioned above for Clemson before their title. They also had probably the most physically gifted QB of all time, so a little bit of an anomoly there. Oregon hasn't been able to win a title, so their rankings are somewhat irrelevant as it relates to what it takes to hoist the trophy.

1) I mentioned QB being the key piece that takes a team with an average recruiting ranking in the teens to being a contender. We saw how quickly those recruiting classes underperformed without cam.

2) Oregon was a flukey tackle where the RB's knees/elbows/butt were inches from the ground that resulted in a 50 yard run to set up a last second FG from going to OT in the natty. That's about as close as a team can be to winning one without winning it. Play that game on a different day and the result could easily be different. You put yourself in position to win conference titles and get a natty shot, actually winning the natty is a bit more of a crapshoot between 2 great teams on any given day. If we want to being myopic and not learn from a program's approach that was inches away from maybe winning a title because "they didn't win it so they are irrelevant", then we are dumb.

3) I said teams that have PLAYED for a natty. That shows you not just how hard it is to win a natty without elite recruiting, but shows how hard it is just to be in a position to play for a natty without elite recruiting. We need to get our recruiting consistently in the mid-teens and then hope to find the right transcendent QB to get the program over the top to competing for a conference championship (and this likely in the natty discussion). We were close with dak and had some other high end pieces, but the middle and back of our roster just wasn't quite good enough.

[I seen it dawg]

Starts at the top

[HSVDawg]

1) I mentioned QB being the key piece that takes a team with an average recruiting ranking in the teens to being a contender. We saw how quickly those recruiting classes underperformed without cam.

2) Oregon was a flukey tackle where the RB's knees/elbows/butt were inches from the ground that resulted in a 50 yard run to set up a last second FG from going to OT in the natty. That's about as close as a team can be to winning one without winning it. Play that game on a different day and the result could easily be different. You put yourself in position to win conference titles and get a natty shot, actually winning the natty is a bit more of a crapshoot between 2 great teams on any given day. If we want to being myopic and not learn from a program's approach that was inches away from maybe winning a title because "they didn't win it so they are irrelevant", then we are dumb.

3) I said teams that have PLAYED for a natty. That shows you not just how hard it is to win a natty without elite recruiting, but shows how hard it is just to be in a position to play for a natty without elite recruiting. We need to get our recruiting consistently in the mid-teens and then hope to find the right transcendent QB to get the program over the top to competing for a conference championship (and this likely in the natty discussion). We were close with dak and had some other high end pieces, but the middle and back of our roster just wasn't quite good enough.

Good points. I agree that Auburn and Oregon are both the most valid recent comparisons to Clemson, but both had a little more talent, I think. Either way, you have to have an elite QB along with a bunch of guys who outperform their recruiting ranking for it to work out. We have a long ways to go, although we appear to have the QB play set for awhile if we can ever figure out the other pieces.

[Lance Harbor]

HAHAHAAH..thank you.

[dawgday166]

Good points. I agree that Auburn and Oregon are both the most valid recent comparisons to Clemson, but both had a little more talent, I think.

Not so sure how you see this. I think Clemson is better than both. Bama would've killed those 2 teams. Remember ... we only lost 17 - 14 to Auburn that year. But even at end of year this Bama team would've beat both IMO.

[GTHOM]

Good post and probably true most years, but the SEC hasn't been as good as the ACC the last two years. The team Clemson has built would be able to run the table in the SEC West, and they proved it. Two best teams in the SEC according to the final CFP rankings were Alabama and Auburn, and Clemson beat both of them at road / neutral locations.

LSU would have beaten auburn with the ogre. The SEC did have a down year but we will be back next year. With a vengeance

[IMissJack]

The better your QB, the worse (relatively speaking) your overall recruiting can be. Bama, maybe Ohio st and f$u, are the only programs recruiting on a level that mediocre QB doesn't immediately disqualify them from playoff discussion. Everyone else needs an elite QB to take them from the 8-10 W level to contender level. I think people have run the numbers before on worst recruiting classes to play for a natty, and seems like Oregon and auburn were both about where clemson's rankings are.

This is very true about QB. A good QB covers a lot of things...see Tom Brady.